Sometimes we have to walk away from stress. Mental health is the most important factor in everyone's life and we all need to respect that. There needs to be more of an emphasis on not putting so much on a student that they feel ready to break at any second from the pressure.

Sometimes we have to walk away from stress. Mental health is the most important factor in everyone's life and we all need to respect that. There needs to be more of an emphasis on not putting so much on a student that they feel ready to break at any second from the pressure.

Sometimes we have to walk away from stress. Mental health is the most important factor in everyone's life and we all need to respect that. There needs to be more of an emphasis on not putting so much on a student that they feel ready to break at any second from the pressure.

Stress, Stress and More Stress

Taylor's passion to learn, do well in school, work after school everyday, and still find time for her friends and family is taking a toll on her as she wonders how to accomplish it all, while still remaining sane. Her one free period helps, but she also needs time to work on her senior project and the pressure has her, and many other students, ready to crack. Most teenagers are stressed, but with college looming and the worry of what the future holds after high school, the stress can affect anyone's life negatively.

After studying for a couple of hours, Taylor feels she has reached her limit, her parents want her to excell but the pressure they put on her is making her extremely anxious. She wants to talk to her friends but knows she must study more. When all someone thinks of is studying, there's a problem.

Nearly half of all teens (42 percent) reported they were not doing enough or were not sure if they were doing enough to manage their stress, and more than one in 10 (13 percent) said they never set aside time to manage stress, a survey in the American Psychologist Association reported. When kids already have problems managing stress, having an excess amount can be a killer.

Group projects are another stress that Taylor and many other kids face all the time in school. There's always one group member that does more than anyone else, which further induces stress. It's hard to combat laziness, but if kids had less stress, maybe their motivation to work harder would increase.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that teenagers get 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night, however, high school students in a sample, drawn from dozens of high-performing schools from across the country, report an average of 6.8 hours, with the averages in some schools falling as low as six hours during week nights; found by a study from Stanford University. Napping is a hallmark of a teenager life, Taylor, who is up late studying, writing essays and doing other work, doesn't get the full amount of sleep she needs, as many others, so she falls asleep when she can.

After all of the stress in a teenager's life, with a full schedule in school and after school, sometimes you have to let yourself off of the hook. Throw the book away that's stressing you out, just let it go.

"Students described emotional exhaustion as a feeling of lethargy or immobilization in response to feeling overwhelmed and stressed. “I just don't do anything”, “I won't do any of it” or “ I lose the ability to function” were some of the ways students described this sense of paralysis" in an NYU study. This paralysis needs to change, and it starts with teenagers realizing they don't need to be perfect and teacher realizing all of the stress their students face, and trying to help them out with their workload.

Sometimes we have to walk away from stress. Mental health is the most important factor in everyone's life and we all need to respect that. There needs to be more of an emphasis on not putting so much on a student that they feel ready to break at any second from the pressure.